@ Ialem - I could scarcely forget something that has been the excuse for dismissing all migration in prehistory and down-playing known migration in early history to the point of triviality. It is abundantly obvious that people can learn languages from people other than their biological parents. It is a known fact that centuries of the Roman Empire succeeded in even changing the first language of parts of that empire to Latin.

Based on this so familiar example, the theory of elite language transmission has been pushed back into prehistory, where it does not belong, and applied to every possible situation as if it were the normal mode of language transmission. Or failing that, terms like "lingua Franca" and "Sprachbund" are tossed around as though they can invariably explain away any necessity for human beings to actually move around in order for a language to move a thousand miles from its initial position.

As you can tell, I am not impressed. I think we need to truly understand modes of language transmission, rather than misusing models for ideological ends.

The reason that we find correlations between Y-DNA haplogroups and language even today is that people generally learn languages from their parents. There are many exceptions of course. We all know about them. But we need to start from that understanding.

Jean, there is a middle course between total migrationism and total antimigrationism. We know that there were migrations in historical times and cultural changes and a mix of both in various degrees. The corelation between YDNA and languages is far from perfect, it is as you yourself have pointed many times, a marker.

@ Ialem - Yes indeed. But when one is battling against an entrenched position, one must be bold and determined in order to have any impact at all. My message is that migration is back on the menu of archaeological explanation. The days of denial are over.

Unfortunately any excuse to carry on denying migration is eagerly seized. We have had decades in which any alternative explanation immediately became the only acceptable one. I have been staggered by the selective blindness. Fairly recently a paper was published in Antiquity which looked in detail at two cemeteries in England in fairly close proximity. One was Romano-British. The other was early Anglo-Saxon. The paper conscientiously explained that these two cemeteries were different in every way: burial rites, clothing, objects, the actual physical remains, their size, etc, etc. The Romano-British one ceased use as the Anglo-Saxon one began. The conclusion is obvious. However towards the end of the article, the authors threw in a sop to anti-migrationists. It was always possible that the Romano-British had adopted Anglo-Saxon ways so thoroughly that they not only created a new cemetery that was totally different from their previous one, but changed their eating habits and so became taller (or whatever the difference was - I forget). Now comes the really staggering bit. The editor then added a summary at the top of the article, claiming that it presented new proof of continuity!!!

Was the Anglo-Saxon cemetery primarily military, with weapon burials, and the Romano-British cemetery that of a farming village?

I remember something about that awhile back. Much was made of the fact that the Anglo-Saxons were a bit taller than the farmers in the Romano-British cemetery. Maybe these are two different cemeteries than the ones I am recalling, but it occurred to me at the time that warriors would naturally be bigger than the general population, on average. That occupation would attract the bigger, stronger guys, those whose chances of success in following it - and of survival - were better than average. In farming, on the other hand, there is no great advantage to being of larger stature.

The point is that comparing a cemetery of Anglo-Saxon warriors to a cemetery of Romano-British farmers is a little like comparing apples and oranges. It's like comparing a cemetery full of American football players to a more typical cemetery. One should find a comparable cemetery of British warriors for comparison.

But that, of course, might be difficult, since by that time the Britons were Christians and probably did not practice the same sorts of warrior burial customs as the pagan Anglo-Saxons.

*I should add that my post is really an aside and not meant to say anything about migrationism versus anti-migrationism. I agree with Jean on that subject.

The origin of the English is an interesting problem – and not only for them. In one short century, the evidence from texts, burial, artefacts, stable isotopes and now DNA provides several different answers to the question of whether England was invaded by Germans in the fifth century and if so in what manner. The rigorous approach by our authors tips the balance back in favour of a population changing its cultural allegiance [!!!!!] – rather than being physically overwhelmed – but, as they emphasise, any new reading must depend on a very high level of archaeological precision – perhaps only now coming within reach.

Changes in burial practice and in the location of cemeteries have happened often within recorded history without a major population change, and we could be seeing such a shift here, with a move by the local population over a generation from one burial site to the other [sop to anti-migrationists]. However, the continental influence apparent within the Berinsfield grave assemblages does support arguments for new arrivals, while the biological evidence, even if not securely linked to ethnic origins, at least suggests some significant differences (for example in d.i.e.t [sorry for some reason the software eats that word] and stature) between the two populations.

A quick aside if I may, just to give some reassurance in case it is needed. I don't mind if people disagree with me. I used to come here for a good argument as often as not. It is a vital part of the process of discovery that ideas should get tested. The truth is a moving target. My Peopling of Europe now is very different from the very first draft back in March 2009. And quite a few of the people I have to thank for contributions to that process post here. Debate is useful.

@ Ialem - Yes indeed. But when one is battling against an entrenched position, one must be bold and determined in order to have any impact at all. My message is that migration is back on the menu of archaeological explanation. The days of denial are over.

Unfortunately any excuse to carry on denying migration is eagerly seized. We have had decades in which any alternative explanation immediately became the only acceptable one. I have been staggered by the selective blindness. Fairly recently a paper was published in Antiquity which looked in detail at two cemeteries in England in fairly close proximity. One was Romano-British. The other was early Anglo-Saxon. The paper conscientiously explained that these two cemeteries were different in every way: burial rites, clothing, objects, the actual physical remains, their size, etc, etc. The Romano-British one ceased use as the Anglo-Saxon one began. The conclusion is obvious. However towards the end of the article, the authors threw in a sop to anti-migrationists. It was always possible that the Romano-British had adopted Anglo-Saxon ways so thoroughly that they not only created a new cemetery that was totally different from their previous one, but changed their eating habits and so became taller (or whatever the difference was - I forget). Now comes the really staggering bit. The editor then added a summary at the top of the article, claiming that it presented new proof of continuity!!!

Be bold is fine, and I have been a proponent of migration for several cultural changes, for instance Cardial Neolithic and Los Millares in Spain, they both have such a marked difference with contemporary sites that they have the flavour of colonial enclaves.The risk is to be too radical everywhere, doing that you risk to undermine your position because for sure there will be, even in Prehistorical times, some instances of cultural changes without massive migrations.

Was the Anglo-Saxon cemetery primarily military, with weapon burials, and the Romano-British cemetery that of a farming village?

I remember something about that awhile back. Much was made of the fact that the Anglo-Saxons were a bit taller than the farmers in the Romano-British cemetery. Maybe these are two different cemeteries than the ones I am recalling, but it occurred to me at the time that warriors would naturally be bigger than the general population, on average. That occupation would attract the bigger, stronger guys, those whose chances of success in following it - and of survival - were better than average. In farming, on the other hand, there is no great advantage to being of larger stature.

The point is that comparing a cemetery of Anglo-Saxon warriors to a cemetery of Romano-British farmers is a little like comparing apples and oranges. It's like comparing a cemetery full of American football players to a more typical cemetery. One should find a comparable cemetery of British warriors for comparison.

But that, of course, might be difficult, since by that time the Britons were Christians and probably did not practice the same sorts of warrior burial customs as the pagan Anglo-Saxons.

*I should add that my post is really an aside and not meant to say anything about migrationism versus anti-migrationism. I agree with Jean on that subject.

That is true, I recall a reference by Kristian Kristiansen on buried Celtic warriors being taller than average people, as much as 10 cms IIRC

I also recall Gothic cemeteries in Spain, they are identified as Gothic because the men are buried with swords, belts and phibulae of a disctintive Germanic pattern, but after Gothic converted to Catholicism and most Gothic free warrior communities (Thiufa) changed their legal status the Gothic cemeteries are no longer different from Hispani.

The risk is to be too radical everywhere, doing that you risk to undermine your position because for sure there will be, even in Prehistorical times, some instances of cultural changes without massive migrations.

Yes indeed. Plenty of them in fact. A lot of cultural change springs from gradual evolution within society. But that theme has been done to death. I have no intention of writing entire chapters on it. My unashamed theme is migration. Naturally I have to discuss the methodological underpinnings. How do we tell the difference between migration and local evolution or trade? I cover a bit of this in Migration: principles and problems.

I find that your position is clear in this paragraph I copy from your blog

However new arrivals to regions already densely settled by thriving farmers have broadly four options.

They can look for unexploited farming, hunting, fishing, herding or mineral-extraction niches.They can offer labour, skills or merchandise to existing communities.They can depose and replace the existing leadership, leaving the farming communities in place to generate wealth.They can drive out entire populations to free land for their own settlers.Only in the last case are incomers likely to completely change the culture and language of their destination. So language replacement is an important clue to mass migrationHowever, there is no historical evidence of the last one I can think of. The third one, as you point, can or can not lead to language replacement and it shows the complexities of cultural influences and their factors. However you conclude that only the 4th can change language and culture (Maybe implying that language can be changed withou cultural change or viceversa?). That is where I don´t follow you, what historical example of the 4th see you that makes you believe that?

The most obvious historical, fully-documented cases of incomers driving out aboriginal populations and completely replacing language and culture come from the European colonial expansions, most particularly in the Americas and Australia. Some of the aboriginal languages do survive, and there are now attempts to preserve elements of the pre-European culture, but these are drops in the ocean of English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Where there is only a partial population replacement, we would expect some linguistic evidence of mixture - borrowed vocabulary or some grammatical or sound-change influence from the language of the original population.

The most obvious historical, fully-documented cases of incomers driving out aboriginal populations and completely replacing language and culture come from the European colonial expansions, most particularly in the Americas and Australia. Some of the aboriginal languages do survive, and there are now attempts to preserve elements of the pre-European culture, but these are drops in the ocean of English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Where there is only a partial population replacement, we would expect some linguistic evidence of mixture - borrowed vocabulary or some grammatical or sound-change influence from the language of the original population.

But the cases of European colonization only drove out aboriginals in regions that were not already densely settled by thriving farmers , on the contrary, in those regions with dense aboriginal farmer population, like Mexico, Peru or India, aboriginals remained, were not drove out.I think the only instance in Prehistory in which your theory could be applied is that on Neolithic colonozers driving out Mesolithic populations, but even that looks increasingly unlikely in Western Europe with all that G2 Haplogroups showing up in Neolithic remains.

The most obvious historical, fully-documented cases of incomers driving out aboriginal populations and completely replacing language and culture come from the European colonial expansions, most particularly in the Americas and Australia. Some of the aboriginal languages do survive, and there are now attempts to preserve elements of the pre-European culture, but these are drops in the ocean of English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Where there is only a partial population replacement, we would expect some linguistic evidence of mixture - borrowed vocabulary or some grammatical or sound-change influence from the language of the original population.

But the cases of European colonization only drove out aboriginals in regions that were not already densely settled by thriving farmers , on the contrary, in those regions with dense aboriginal farmer population, like Mexico, Peru or India, aboriginals remained, were not drove out.I think the only instance in Prehistory in which your theory could be applied is that on Neolithic colonozers driving out Mesolithic populations, but even that looks increasingly unlikely in Western Europe with all that G2 Haplogroups showing up in Neolithic remains.

Don't underestimate the relative lack of European immigration in the late 1800s to early 1900s in places like Mexico and Peru when compared to places like Argentina, southern Brazil and Uruguay. That also contributes to the higher frequency of American Indian DNA in Mexico and Peru.

The most obvious historical, fully-documented cases of incomers driving out aboriginal populations and completely replacing language and culture come from the European colonial expansions, most particularly in the Americas and Australia. Some of the aboriginal languages do survive, and there are now attempts to preserve elements of the pre-European culture, but these are drops in the ocean of English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Where there is only a partial population replacement, we would expect some linguistic evidence of mixture - borrowed vocabulary or some grammatical or sound-change influence from the language of the original population.

But the cases of European colonization only drove out aboriginals in regions that were not already densely settled by thriving farmers , on the contrary, in those regions with dense aboriginal farmer population, like Mexico, Peru or India, aboriginals remained, were not drove out.I think the only instance in Prehistory in which your theory could be applied is that on Neolithic colonozers driving out Mesolithic populations, but even that looks increasingly unlikely in Western Europe with all that G2 Haplogroups showing up in Neolithic remains.

Don't underestimate the relative lack of European immigration in the late 1800s to early 1900s in places like Mexico and Peru when compared to places like Argentina, southern Brazil and Uruguay. That also contributes to the higher frequency of American Indian DNA in Mexico and Peru.

I think that is related to the dense aboriginal population that made unnecesary to import inmigrant labour force. Inmigration and slave labour force went to the regions they were required because the aboriginal population was not dense.

@ Ialem. Good point. I suppose I need to stick to the example of the Anglo-Saxons.

But you know that is a contested issue, there is some circular argument here, since you first assume that language replacement should be produced by population replacement then you conclude that this was the case in the Anglosaxon example.I know you have some archaeological support, and I am ready to admit that there was a significant Anglosaxon migration, but did it replaced the Aboriginals? There is another point that makes the case of Anglosaxon difficult to compare, because other Barbarians (Franks, Goths, Longobardi...) met a population that spoke a form of Low Latin, a language of prestige related to the Christian religion, but the Anglosaaxon met a population speaking a Celtic language that didn´t have that cultural or religious prestige.

Ialem - Of course it is a contested issue, because archaeology has been stuck in migration-denial for decades. A paper which actually provides evidence against population continuity in any sane world gets trumpeted as evidence for it. What more evidence do you need that my primary aim should be to get people to look migration in the face and accept that it can't all be airbrushed out of existence.

The languages that the Anglo-Saxons encountered in Britain in fact included Latin, and they seem to have borrowed some words from it prior to the adoption of Christianity. Latin remained the language of the literate i.e. churchmen, mainly, in the west and north of Britain, but it certainly didn't have a hold strong enough to stop Celtic reasserting itself in the Post-Roman period.

This is actually a very complex story, to which I cannot do justice in the space I give it in the text on the Franks and Anglo-Saxons, but I do try to cover regional variation. The degree to which there was population replacement in what is now England varies enormously from massive in East Anglia and other eastern counties to superficial in Cornwall.

I think the only instance in Prehistory in which your theory could be applied is that on Neolithic colonizers driving out Mesolithic populations, but even that looks increasingly unlikely in Western Europe with all that G2 Haplogroups showing up in Neolithic remains.

Unlikely? Surely you don't think that G arrived in Europe before the Neolithic? So far the only Y-DNA haplogroup found in ancient DNA in Europe that could be pre-Neolithic is F*.

Ialem - Of course it is a contested issue, because archaeology has been stuck in migration-denial for decades. A paper which actually provides evidence against population continuity in any sane world gets trumpeted as evidence for it. What more evidence do you need that my primary aim should be to get people to look migration in the face and accept that it can't all be airbrushed out of existence.

I think that may be related to some political correctness, at least in Spain I can feel that, if you talk about migrations, they are more easily admitted if they are traders and agricultural settlers, but strongly denied if they imply ruthless conquerors

I think the only instance in Prehistory in which your theory could be applied is that on Neolithic colonizers driving out Mesolithic populations, but even that looks increasingly unlikely in Western Europe with all that G2 Haplogroups showing up in Neolithic remains.

Unlikely? Surely you don't think that G arrived in Europe before the Neolithic? So far the only Y-DNA haplogroup found in ancient DNA in Europe that could be pre-Neolithic is F*.

No, what I mean is that since G2 is neolithic and it is very rare nowdays in Europe then it is unlikely that G2 neolithic people drove out mesolithic people, but of course it could be that they did and there is no tgrace of Mesolithic population in modern Europe

No, what I mean is that since G2 is neolithic and it is very rare nowdays in Europe then it is unlikely that G2 neolithic people drove out mesolithic people, but of course it could be that they did and there is no trace of Mesolithic population in modern Europe

Neolithic people seem mainly to have settled in regions or areas already deserted by Mesolithic people, at least initially. But the higher ability of farmers to reproduce would make it likely that they would end up pushing hunter-gatherers to marginal areas unsuitable for farming. Mesolithic people were not completely driven out of Europe though. And they had their revenge as descendants of those people of the margins burst across Europe in the Bronze Age. See Impact of farmers on Europe's population for a graph.

I think that may be related to some political correctness, at least in Spain I can feel that, if you talk about migrations, they are more easily admitted if they are traders and agricultural settlers, but strongly denied if they imply ruthless conquerors

Exactly the same in Britain. I go to some lengths to show that migration does not necessarily happen only in armies. :)

The issue of migration and language replacement is fascinating to me. It probably deserves a separate thread. There must be a reason why Germanic incursions in England led to near total language replacement, while those in other areas (such as France, Spain and Italy) did not.

It is intersting to compare the situation in England with that in Normandy. In the latter the Scandinavian language began to die out within a few generations. Only a few Scandinavian terms survive in the Norman dialect, mainly relating to nautical and fishing terms.

A study by a French scholar of Scandinavian personal names in Normandy before 1066 found very few Scandinavian female names. Presumably the incomers were largely males who took local women for spouses, and their children learned their mothers' language. The situation in England must have been radically different.

On the other hand, I remember reading about a DNA study in Columbia which showed Ydna to be predominantly European, while the MtDNA was largely indigenous. Yet the Spanish language prevailed. I wonder if the difference may be that migration from Iberia to South America continued over several centuries.

Mexico and Peru were mentioned earlier. My impression in seeing quite a few Latin American y-dna test results, and in viewing a number of Latin American Family Finder and mtDNA results, is that Latin Americans tend to be European on the y-dna side and Amerindian on the distaff side. That is reflected in what I have seen of the Mexico DNA project.

My comments in this regard are purely anecdotal. I don't have any scientific genetic population studies to which to refer. These are just my impressions.

I get the impression the Spanish were devastating to the Amerindian male population but apparently did not bring many females with them from Spain.

Mexico and Peru were mentioned earlier. My impression in seeing quite a few Latin American y-dna test results, and in viewing a number of Latin American Family Finder and mtDNA results, is that Latin Americans tend to be European on the y-dna side and Amerindian on the distaff side. That is reflected in what I have seen of the Mexico DNA project.

My comments in this regard are purely anecdotal. I don't have any scientific genetic population studies to which to refer. These are just my impressions.

I get the impression the Spanish were devastating to the Amerindian male population but apparently did not bring many females with them from Spain.

Perhaps distance was the factor in not bringing in domestic people from Spain?The cost of ships and provisions were better spent on the military arm of the Spanish in search of riches?